Scalable Approach for Power Droop Reduction During Scan-Based Logic BIST

ABSTRACT:
The generation of significant power droop (PD) during at-speed test performed by Logic Built-In
Self Test (LBIST) is a serious concern for modern ICs. In fact, the PD originated during test may
delay signal transitions of the circuit under test (CUT): an effect that may be erroneously
recognized as delay faults, with consequent erroneous generation of test fails and increase in yield
loss. In this paper, we propose a novel scalable approach to reduce the PD during at-speed test of
sequential circuits with scan-based LBIST using the launch-on capture scheme. This is achieved
by reducing the activity factor of the CUT, by proper modification of the test vectors generated by
the LBIST of sequential ICs. Our scalable solution allows us to reduce PD to a value similar to
that occurring during the CUT in field operation, without increasing the number of test vectors
required to achieve target fault coverage (FC). We present a hardware implementation of our
approach that requires limited area overhead. Finally, we show that, compared with recent
alternative solutions providing a similar PD reduction, our approach enables a significant reduction
of the number of test vectors (by more than 50%), thus the test time, to achieve a target FC. The
proposed architecture of this paper analysis the logic size, area and power consumption using
Xilinx 14.2.

EXISTING SYSTEM:
At-speed test of logic blocks is nowadays frequently performed using Logic BIST (LBIST), which
can take the form of either combinational LBIST or scan-based LBIST, depending on whether the
CUT is a combinational circuit or a sequential one with scan. In case of scan-based LBIST, two
basic capture-clocking schemes exist: 1) the launch-on-shift (LOS) scheme and2) the launch-on-
capture (LOC) scheme. In LOS schemes, test vectors are applied to the CUT at the last clock (CK)
of the shift phase, and the CUT response is sampled on the scan chains at the following capture
CK. In the LOC scheme, instead, test vectors are first loaded into the scan-chains during the shift
phase; then, in a following capture phase, they arefirst applied to the CUT at a launch CK, and the
CUT response is captured on the scan chains in a following capture CK. In this paper, we consider
the case of sequential CUTs with scan-based LBIST adopting an LOC scheme, whichis frequently
adopted for high-performance microprocessors. They suffer from the PD problems discussed
above, especially during the capture phase, due to the high AF of the CUT induced by the applied
test patterns.

We consider the conventional scan-based LBIST (Conv LBIST) architecture shown in Fig. 1. The
state flip-flops (FFs) of the CUT are scan FFs, arranged into many scan chains (s scan chains in
Fig. 1).The pseudorandom pattern generator is implemented by an LFSR. The PS, which reduces
the correlation among the test vectors applied to adjacent scan-chains, is composed of an XOR
network expanding the number of outputs of the LFSR to match the number of scan chains. The
PS gives to its output the current LFSR output configuration, together with future/past
configurations at each shift CK.

Figure 1: Schematic of the considered scan-based LBIST architecture.

The Space Compactor compacts the outputs of these scan chains to match the number of inputs of
the Multiple-Input Signature Register (MISR). The MISR, the test response analyzer, and the BIST
Controller are the same as in combinational scan-based LBIST.

As for the scan FFs, our approach requires that, during shift phases, they maintain the last test
vector applied to the CUT at their outputs. This is guaranteed by the scan-FF, which is frequently
employed in microprocessors, and considered here as a significant example. However, this can
also be achieved with other different scan FFs. The internal structure of this FF is shown in Fig. 2.
It consists of two sub blocks, namely, the scan portion and the system portion, each consisting of
a master-slave FF composed of two latches (Latches LA and LB for the scan portion, and latches
PH2 and PH1 for the system portion). The latches have two clocks, and sample one out of two
input data lines, depending on which clock is active.

Figure 2: Considered scan FF and signals’ timing

The clocking scheme adopted to implement an LOC strategy is also reported in Fig. 2. It consists
of a shift phase [scanenable (SE=1)] and a capture phase (SE=0). During the shift phase, a new
test vector is loaded in the scan chains after n shift CKs, where n is the number of scan FFs of the
longest scan chain. At each shift CK, a new bit of the test vector present at the scan_in of latch LA
is shifted to the scan_out of latch LB.
DISADVANTAGES:
 Performance is low
PROPOSED SYSTEM:
We propose a novel, scalable approach to reduce PD during capture phases of scan-based LBIST,
thus reducing the probability to generate false test fails during test. Similar to the solutions, our
approach reduces the AF of the CUT compared with conventional scan-based LBIST, by properly
modifying the test vectors generated by the Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR). Our approach
is somehow similar to reseeding techniques, to the extent that the sequence of test vectors is
properly modified in order to fulfill a given requirement that, however, is not to increase FC (as it
is usually the case for reseeding),but to reduce PD.

Proposed scalable approach:

As we introduced in Section I, the goal of our approach is to reduce the PD that may generate false
test fails during at speed test with scan-based LBIST. Such a PD occurs after the application of a
new test vector to the CUT. This occurs at the launch CK (Update pulse in Fig. 2) within capture
phases. The generated PD is proportional to the CUT AF induced by the application of a new test
vector, which in turn depends on the AF of the scan FFs’ outputs [8]. For the considered scan FFs
(Fig. 2), such an AF depends on the number of FFs’ outputs switching when the new test vector is
applied. Therefore, the target of our approach is to reduce the number of FFs’ outputs transitions
occurring after the application ofa new test vector to the CUT.

Approach With 1 Substitute Test Vector:

For each scan chain m(m=1…s), one ST vector STmire places the original test vector T mi to be
applied to the CUT at the ith capture phase according to Conv-LBIST (Fig. 3). It will be shown
that this enables a 50% AF reduction compared with Conv-LBIST. In our approach, the ST vector
STmito be charged in the Scan-Chain (SC)m and applied to the CUT at the ith capture phase is
constructed based on the structure of test vectorsTmi−1andTmi+1to be applied at the (i−1)th and
(i+1)th capture phases. Assuming the presence of a generic PS, our solutionexploits the fact that,
during the shift phase preceding the ith capture phase, test vectorsTmi−1andTmi+1are given at
properout puts of the PS. Should some test vectors not be produced at the PS outputs, the PS could
be easily modified to generate them.
Figure 3: Schematic of (a) sequence of test vectors filling each scan chainm,(b) bits in the ST
vector STmi and in the test vectors applied/to be applied at the previous/following capture phase

ADVANTAGES:
 Better performance
SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION:
 Modelsim
 Xilinx ISE